Most of the college loan debt — $605.6 billion — is owed on federal student loans. Private student loans are in a distant, but troubling, second place. These numbers, by the way, don’t include the debt that parents absorb when their kids head to college.

College loan debt is scarier than credit card debt because it can hardly ever be discharged in bankruptcy. The penalties for students, who fall behind with their student loan payments, are nothing short of draconian. You can read heart-breaking stories of student-loan casualties at Student Loan Justice.

Students who take out federal loans are in better shape than those who carry private college debt. I was just telling a friend this week about a fairly new federal program called Income-Based Repayment Plan that can help reduce the student debt burden at least temporarily. There are, however, no magic bullets for students who have overdosed onprivate loans.

What’s equally frightening, is how heavily college students have been turning to loans recently. Kantrowitz estimates that students have accumulated $300 billion in federal student loandebt in just the past four years.

4 Responses to College Loan Debt Just Passed Credit Card Debt!

Take a peek at Maslows hierarchy of needs and see where all those low paying educations attempt to influence culture or better yet how all the high paying educations are transforming us into individuals deprived of creativity and individuality…Sorry, make money and become a new third world country, what a winner, remember the Peter Principle… it worked then it will work now.